This invention relates to rotary food cutters in which interchangeable conical cutters comminute and release food from a hopper. Such cutters have cutting portions projecting outwardly from the conical wall of the cutter body to provide sharp forwardly-facing cutting edges and forwardly-facing openings for receiving the cut material. To provide products of different thicknesses, the cutting edges of different cutters extend different heights from the cone walls. Known cutters have their cutting edges shaped to cut the food into a variety of forms such as flat slices, waffled slices, shreds, strings or French fries.
Prior to this invention, the conical walls of the different interchangeable cutters were geometrically identical so that the cutting edges of different cutters would lie at different radial distances from their respective cutter axes. These radii were dependent upon the height of the cutting edges from their respective bases. With such an arrangement, the distances from the cutting edges to the lower edge of the hopper would vary from one cutter to another, sometimes providing an unnecessarily wide gap.
According to the present invention, the cutting edges of all cutters are spaced equidistantly of the cutter axis and the lower edge of the hopper. This effect is achieved by having cutter cones with walls of differing corresponding radii and cutting portions extending different distances from their respective walls, the cutting portions of such cones lying at substantially the same distances from their respective central axes so as to lie substantially the same distance from the lower edge of the hopper.